Electricity is rapidly becoming a “basic human need”. Though the power grid is expanding across the globe, 1.4 billion people (20% of the population) still do not have access to electricity. These people tend to be the poorest and live in remote locations. The costs associated with bringing grid power to many of these people are astronomical, and the timeline is in multiple decades. Additionally the cost and return on investment (ROI) for the currently available, off-grid solutions is so poor that it makes these projects non-starters.
In addition, every day, 3.6 billion people cook with solid fuels (e.g., wood, coal, or dung, for example). Many of these people cook indoors with little or no ventilation. This results in 3.5 million deaths due to respiratory illness every year. Dozens of “Improved Cookstove” programs exist, but none have had any widespread success.
Furthermore, 700 million people do not have access to safe drinking water. This results in 3.4 million deaths from waterborne illness every year. There are a myriad of initiatives across the globe to improve the safety of drinking water. However, the majority of them involves large, expensive projects on a community scale and do not address the needs of the most remote and poorest people.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a device that could cost-effectively address all three of these issues without requiring connection to an established electrical grid.